"In Hogarth, alas, how little of the noble, how little of beauteous expression, is to be found in this, I had almost said, false prophet of beauty! But what an immense treasure of features, of meanness in excess, vulgarity the most disgusting, humour the most irresistible, and vice the most unmanly!"—Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy.
In this rhapsody there is some truth; but the philosopher of Zurich should have recollected that Hogarth could not be expected to attain what he never attempted. Sublimity exalted, simplicity angelic, and the ideal grandeur of superior beings, he left to those who delineated subjects which demanded such characters; and contented himself with representing Nature, not as it ought to be, but as he found it. That he had little reverence for the dreams of those who portrayed imaginary beings, I have had occasion to remark; but that he respected their waking thoughts is evinced in this print, where the heads of three figures from Raphael's Cartoons are introduced under the article character, in opposition to the fantastic caricatures of Cavalier Chezze, Annibal Characi,[195] and Leonard da Vinci: the last of whom, I am very sorry to see so classed; for to his anatomical knowledge the late Dr. Hunter gave the strongest testimony, by declaring his intention to publish a volume illustrated by the designs of this artist, as anatomical studies.
I have often seen three engravings from the same picture, by an Italian, an English, and a French artist, which, with a tolerable correctness of outline, have in their general characters a dissimilarity that is astonishing. Each engraver gives his national air. The three heads from Raphael, at the bottom of this print, are etched by Hogarth, and sufficiently marked to determine the master from whence they are copied; but their grandeur, elevation, and simplicity is totally evaporated.
With angels, apostles, and saints, he was not happy. In the group placed above them he has been more successful. Hogarth was less of a mannerist than almost any other artist; for though there are above a hundred profiles, I discover no copy from another painter; no repetition of his own works: they are all delineated from nature, and the most careless observer must discover many resemblances: to the physiognomist, they are an inexhaustible study.
This print was given as a subscription-ticket to the six plates of "Marriage à la Mode."
SARAH MALCOLM.
Executed opposite Mitre Court, Fleet Street, on the 7th of March 1733, for the murder of Mrs. Lydia Duncombe, Elizabeth Harrison, and Anne Price.
"How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?"